CMDB Federation. DMTF Standards for Federating CMDBs and other Management Data Repositories

Transcription

1 CMDB Federation DMTF Standards for Federating CMDBs and other Management Data Repositories

2 Synopsis Many organizations base IT management on a configuration management system consisting of a configuration management database (CMDB), other management data repositories, and configuration and change management processes to plan and govern changes in the IT environment. Federation technology may be used to balance the need to integrate data from the various data repositories with a need to manage the data in each repository separately. The DMTF CMDB Federation (CMDBf) Standard simplifies the process of managing related configuration data and provides IT personnel with a more complete picture of their IT environment by providing a vendor-neutral solution for sharing information across multiple CMDBs and management data repositories (MDRs). This presentation describes the business and technical challenges facing IT organizations considering federation, the scenarios that motivate its use, and the benefits of implementing the CMDBf standard to efficiently and effectively manage CMDBs and other MDRs. 10 September

3 ITIL Refresh or ITIL v3 Major rewrite and reorganization of ITIL documents Value Added Products Continual Service Improvement Clarify, enhance, and add new processes where necessary Service Strategy Service Design Organize processes into a lifecycle approach Service Strategy Service Design Service Transition Continual Service Improvement Service Operation ITIL Service Transition Continual Service Improvement Service Operation Continual Service Improvement Complimentary Products 10 September

4 Service Asset & Configuration Management One of the ITIL Service Transition processes Manage service assets across service lifecycle Provide a configuration model of the services, assets, and infrastructure by recording the relationships between service assets, configuration items, and process artifacts (e.g., incidents, problems, change records, etc.) Ensure the integrity of assets & configurations by establishing and maintaining an accurate and complete Configuration Management System (CMS) The CMS is the single common representation used by all parts of IT Service Management 10 September

5 Example of a configuration model Customer Service level package Service portfolio Source: ITIL V3 Service Transition Contract Banking core service Serviced by E-banking support service Supported by Application Hosted Application hosting Uses service Technical infrastructure service Availability User Experience Business Logic Messaging Data Services Web Services Network Topology Access Control 10 September

6 Why federate CMDBs and other repositories? Excerpt from ITIL Service Transition: 7.3 CONFIGURATION MANAGEMENT SYSTEM [CMS] " For large and complex infrastructures, Configuration Management will operate more effectively when supported by a software tool that is capable of maintaining a CMS. The CMS contains details about the attributes and the history of each CI [Configuration Item] and details of the important relationships between CIs. Ideally, any CMDB should be linked to the DML [Definitive Media Library]. Often, several tools need to be integrated to provide the fully automated solution across platforms, e.g. federated CMDB." 10 September

7 Why are there multiple tools and repositories? Different tools for different processes Different tools for different domains (e.g., computing, network, storage, applications, etc.) Recent trends add new domain types for smart infrastructure: cooling systems, power generators and monitors, smart grids, cell phone towers, instrumented pipelines, manufacturing automation, etc. Different tools for different geographies or organizations Mergers and in-house consolidation Legacy in-house repositories Some elements internal and some outsourced Different service providers 10 September

8 Example CMDB integration scenarios Integrate data from different vendor asset manager, service desk, and CMDB/configuration manager Integrate an in-house CMDB with vendor tools Company outsources its IT division (predominantly one vendor architecture) to a service bureau with a different predominant vendor architecture. For economic reasons, will not rip & replace; needs two-way integration Company has established configuration & change management tools. Wants to acquire a 3 rd party service catalog & link CIs in the service catalog to the CIs in the CMDB 10 September

9 Configuration Management System example Presentation Configuration Lifecycle View Asset Lifecycle View... Service Desk View Source: Adapted from ITIL V3 Service Transition Change & Release View Knowledge Processing Query & Analysis Reporting Data Visualization... Modeling Access Control Information Integration Schema Mapping CIs Integrated CMDB Relationships Assets Meta Data Process Artifacts... Federation Reconciliation Discovery Data Sources Project Documentation Definitive Media Library CMDBs... Discovery & Asset Management Software Configuration Management 10 September

10 What is data federation? Data federation allows applications to access diverse and distributed data as if it were a single source, regardless of the location, format, and access language Different from a data consolidation approach, federation does not physically move data into a central repository Federation supports Data transparency Accessing data no matter where it is located Heterogeneity Mixing data from two or more sources Data source agnostic Consumer does not need to understand format of the source data Federation is an important part of building a CMDB / CMS 10 September

11 Advantages of working with federated data No time-consuming data movement, data transfer or data latency issues, the federated data is not transferred into the CMDB (only metadata and resource identity is registered) When federated data is needed, it is fetched real-time from the appropriate federating sources Changes to federated data at the source are immediately available and do not need to be synchronized to the CMDB Provides access to data stored about an object in any number of external repositories enabling an aggregate view of the object Supports integration of data models, allowing inclusion of additional information about an object from a different data model 10 September

12 IT pain points for integrating configuration data Many Configuration Repositories Creates long complex migration paths to full service management solution Complexity in utilizing current tooling to achieve a single configuration view Migrations to new configuration management solutions made difficult No way to map relationships across configuration repositories Loss of business perspective No way of linking other data sources (asset info) to IT configuration info Current tooling leaves it up to the user in may ways No standards for representing data models No single way to query for associated attributes No standardized tools to know who is utilizing federated data 10 September

13 The growing importance of IT standards With the ever-increasing need for flexibility, availability and performance in today s distributed enterprises, management standards for IT professionals are now more important than ever. Deploying systems, tools and solutions that support management standards helps reduce system management complexity and lower overall IT costs. 10 September

14 CMDBf (CMDB Federation) overview Authorized Config Actual Config Asset Service Description CMDBf (CMDB Federation) Federates both items & relationships Associate facets of the same item Accommodate different data models Common interface to access the data Identity Property Identity Property Identifying Properties Resource Identity Aggregate View Configuration Discovery Federating CMDB CMDBf Web services XML Asset Tracking Development Tools 10 September

15 CMDBf architecture Processes IT staff CMDBf Query MDR data may be available directly from MDR or via Federating CMDB Query service interface is the same for CMDB or MDR Federating CMDB Federation Logic CMDBf Registration CMDBf Query Management Management Tools Management MDR Tools MDR Tools MDR Management Data Repository Diverse Assets Assets and Infrastructure Virtualized & Heterogeneous Infrastructure Production Distribution Transportation People Facilities Technology Applications Systems Storage Network Security 10 September

16 Federating CMDB reconciles different views together Federating CMDB ID1{a,b} ID2{c,d} MDR #1 ID1{a,b} MDR #2 ID2{c,d} {a,b,c,d} ID3{a,c} MDR #3 {a,b,c,d} ID3{a,c} 10 September

17 Single logical view of physically distributed data Asset CMDB Item ID Asset Manager Authorized Baseline Item ID = Authorized Baseline Item ID Asset Actual Snapshot Logical view of the Item (opt) shallow Actual Snapshot Item ID Actual Snapshot Configuration Discovery Physical storage of data about the item 10 September

18 CMDB Scenario: Construct a topology from distributed federated data MDR CMDBf MDR CMDBf MDR CMDBf Build on-demand (or maintain a cache) with federated data Leverage common interface to access federated data Leverage common item + relationship model across MDRs CMDB / Topology Builder CMDBf 10 September

19 Example usage scenarios Discover and relate resources to each other across multiple domains and tools Keep configuration data current when changes are implemented Insure compatibility of related changes (function and schedule) Maintain best practice control & governance Audit expected vs. actual configuration Compare asset vs. configuration for financial and license management Analyze relationships/impacts between business services (and service levels) and supporting resources Analyze incidents/problems in context (configuration, change history) Manage asset end of life without disrupting business services 10 September

20 DMTF Distributed Management Task Force Developing Standards that Enable Interoperable IT Management DMTF collaborates to develop IT management standards that promote multivendor interoperability worldwide. DMTF is at the center of the systemsmanagement industry, developing standards that are continually improving the IT management landscape. DMTF standards primarily serve: IT Personnel DMTF provides increased choice, reduced cost and improved interoperability for heterogeneous IT management infrastructures. IT Solutions Vendors DMTF standards reduce development and design costs by enabling companies to dedicate resources to growing their own business. 10 September

21 DMTF Board Companies DMTF Leadership Companies BMC Software Brocade Communications Cisco ETRI Rackspace Red Hat Savvis SunGard Availability Services WBEM Solutions 10 September 17,

22 CMDBf timeline April 2006 October 2007 November 2007 September 2008 November 2008 February 2009 July 2009 TBD CMDB Federation consortium created (BMC, CA, Fujitsu, Hewlett-Packard, IBM, Microsoft) Specification published Specification submitted to DMTF Public demonstrations Work in Progress published DMTF standard (version 1.0) published DMTF standard (version 1.1/2.0) published 10 September

23 Summary Value of Federation Access diverse and distributed data as if it were a single source, regardless of the location, format, and access language Minimize data movement and related synchronization challenges Supports integration with external management systems and integration of disparate data models Helps simplify many real business scenarios (company acquisition, data consolidation, etc) Value of CMDB Federation standard Facilitate integration across vendor and in-house implementations Minimize cost to participate in a federated CMDB / CMS 10 September

24 Contact information Mark W Johnson IBM Burnet Road Austin, TX mwj@us.ibm.com Office: admin@dmtf.org 10 September